The Chameleon Read Free

magazine?”
    Miss Wren shoved the fan magazine across Violet's chest. She had just purchased the latest crossword puzzle book and a copy of
Collier's
for herself. As she slipped the copy of
Silent Screen
with a mournful Zasu Pitts on the cover over to Slim, she was struck by Violet's pallor. Miss Wren was suddenly reminded of her own poor mother, who had recently passed away.
    “I tell you it's serious. She's too young to look so tired.”
    At that moment Violet winced and placed her hands on her right side. She apologetically explained, “Gas.”
    “Appendicitis,” Miss Slim decided, blowing her frozen words over to Miss Wren.
    “Gallstones.” Miss Wren returned the volley.
    Twins!
Violet thought to herself in sudden horror. For months she had been hoping to hear the missing Mr. Organ's key turn in the door of their one-room Kenwood flat and announce that he was back for good to care for her and teach geography instead of traipsing the globe like a bespectacled Ulysses. Now she was seized with the terrible notion that he had brought her something more than the colorful souvenirs and native dolls from South America on his last trip home. What if it were something truly terrible, like syphilis? She had no idea exactly where Leland had been on his adventures; she had simply indulged his wanderlust, hoping it was just a thirst that time would quench. But if theirs was to be the Lost Generation, why did her husband have to take it literally? The pain that gripped her was double anything she had felt before. Why, if she had gone to a doctor, his diagnosis would have been “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
    “Sex.” Violet blushed. How improper the whole business was. No, she didn't care if Mr. Organ ever came home.
    “Divorce.” Violet Organ whispered the forbidden words into the wind. She wondered how Marshall Field's Department Store would respond to the very unorthodox act of having one of its salesladies behave like the society folk to whom they were supposed to cater.
    Violet thought it was so unfair that it was perfectly all right for her to sell Mrs. Hollingsworth an extravagant trousseau for her third marriage to some polo-playing playboy, but heaven help an abandoned, pregnant salesgirl thinking of legally leaving her “gone far and away” spouse—especially if she worked in a store that sold family values every bit as much as silver place settings, diamond chokers, chocolate truffles, school clothes, and shoes for the entire family.
    “Archaeologist my foot!” Her words angrily assaulted the icy air as she thought back to his only postcard. He'd run off to join the excavators of the newly discovered King Tutankhamen's tomb the way an impulsive child might run off to join the circus. “He's just a geography teacher with a shovel.”
    “Uhhhhh!” A piercing pain shot through Violet's tummy like an eel weaving its way through her insides.
    “Ohhhhh!” Miss Slim said, echoing the same sound, only in enchantment. The trio stopped in their tracks and stood wide-eyed in front of the big Christmas window.
    Pain was pushed aside as Miss Slim, Miss Wren, and even the teary-eyed Violet fell under the spell of Fraser's greatest glory. Arthur Fraser, with his staff of twenty display artists, painters, carpenters, plaster molders, and electricians, created his windows like meticulously crafted stage sets. The sixty-foot window was breathtaking with its Noel magic and fashions of the hour. The two ladies balanced Violet between them as she pressed her nose against the window. It was too cold to snow outside, but inside the enchanted store window fake snow was softly falling, miraculously visible from two tall French windows that sheltered a stylishly decorated art deco living room. Inside, a happy family was gathered in front of a cozy fire. A mother mannequin wearing a Vionnet velvet evening gown and a father mannequin sporting a satin-collared smoking jacket were enjoying the magic with their two eager, round-faced